Only one Tennessee county had an unemployment rate above 5% during the month of April, according to newly released data from the Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Perry County was the only county with a rate above 5%, coming in at 5.1%. Although coming in with the highest rate for April, Perry County was down 0.1 of a percentage point from its March rate of 5.2%
Read the full story
In our celebrity-crazed culture, too often a person’s capacity to garner attention exceeds his talent in his chosen field. This applies to politics, too. A politician’s well-manicured image obfuscates the policies he espouses, especially during a campaign. Consequently, if elected, the ramifications of a politician’s policies that were neglected, amidst the consultant-crafted images our campaigns have become, suddenly manifest themselves in the most unpleasant ways.
Read the full story
Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Arizona GOP gubernatorial hopeful Blake Masters, the former president of Thiel Capital.
Read the full story
Far-left Democrat State Representative Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) joined other Tennessee liberals demanding gun control in the state.
“Yes, I have every intention of bringing back my red flag bill, as well as my safe storage legislation in January,” she tweeted on Wednesday.
Read the full story
The USDA approved nearly $1 million for a Virginia grant to assist with food and nutrition services in public schools and more than $9 million worth of rural development loans to two Virginia programs.
A $982,827 grant to the Virginia Department of Education will help the department with their nutrition staff to implement meal pattern standards for schools in the next year, according to a USDA news release. The grant is called the “Team Nutrition Training Grant for School Nutrition Professional Readiness and Retention.”
Read the full story
The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) is recruiting civilians who would like to do investigation work.
According to a job posting, the MPD is looking for a case investigator able to do both office and field work. The required qualifications are at least two years of “investigative experience including actual interviewing” and “post-secondary education in Criminal Justice, Sociology or Psychology or equivalent.”
Read the full story
Fare-free and additional bus services will once again be offered in Connecticut this summer, Gov. Ned Lamont said.
The governor announced the ParkConneCT program, a pilot program last summer, will provide no fare shuttle and enhanced transit services to state parks and beaches. The program opens Saturday and runs through Labor Day weekend.
Read the full story
In a setback for public-sector unions, a consent order could upend Pennsylvania’s fair share fee laws, which require non-union workers to pay a fee similar to union dues.
The consent order, issued on May 23 by the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster County, declared the state’s fair share fee law unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.
Read the full story
As residents of the Great Lakes State and out-of-state tourists prepare to inaugurate the 2022 outdoor vacation season, they’re being stymied by gasoline prices rising steadily toward the $5 per gallon range.
The Michigan Senate has passed a slate of bills designed to alleviate drivers’ pain at the pump. If signed into law by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the bills would save Michigan drivers between 40 cents to 50 cents a gallon by temporarily eliminating the state’s 6% sales tax and 27-cent-per-gallon excise tax.
Read the full story
In an appearance on 106.7 The Fan, State Senator Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax City) expanded comments on his opposition to a Washington Commanders stadium authority bill. In a Wednesday press release, Petersen said he was concerned by traffic problems at a proposed Woodbridge site, but focused on the team’s recent move away from its controversial former name “Washington Redskins.”
“It’s not that I don’t like the new name,” Petersen told BMitch and Finlay Thursday. “I mean, I don’t care. The problem is the team has no brand, it has no identity. And you’re asking the Commonwealth of Virginia to enter a long-term economic relationship with a team that effectively has no brand.”
Read the full story
Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed soap opera superstar Martha Byrne about her and her retired NYPD detective husband Michael McMahon’s ordeal with the Justice Department.
Read the full story
Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Republican state Rep. Jake Hoffman (AZ-12), the founder of the Arizona Freedom Caucus in the state’s House of Representatives, about the state of play for conservatives in the Copper State.
Read the full story
People who have a problem with how much energy it takes to mine Bitcoin should take a more long term view of the situation and realize Bitcoin´s energy requirements are a feature, not a bug. Bitcoin mining provides a powerful market incentive for energy producers worldwide to increase the production of cheap energy, which could potentially drive down global energy prices. That’s great news for everyone, but it’s especially good for the least well-off in society, as they’ll be the ones who benefit the most from cheaper energy.
Bitcoin relies on a consensus mechanism called Proof-of-Work (PoW) which requires energy to issue new tokens into existence. PoW is a complex computing process performed with specialized machines that consume a lot of energy. Thanks to this technological innovation, today we all have access to a new form of money that exists in the digital world. Therefore, Bitcoin can be seen as both an “energy currency” and a “digital currency.”
Read the full story
Perhaps the most risible, widely acclaimed children’s book in the history of children’s books is The Rainbow Fish. This book, featuring a beautiful fish with shiny scales on the cover, made it into home libraries of children everywhere. It tells the story of a fish who is special because his scales are shiny and brightly colored. Every other boring, no-talent, plainly scaled fish envies the lovely and gifted Rainbow Fish and harasses him. The solution? The Rainbow Fish gives away all that made him special in order to earn their friendship and now these little commie crappies each have one scale but remain ugly, envious redistributionists.
The result? Equity. Everyone felt better because no one was great. A bunch of mediocre fishes swim around with pink hair or a nose ring and a big chip on their no-talent shoulders.
Read the full story
Ohio voters will decide in November on a bail reform measure that could move the state toward cash bail and requires judges to consider public safety when setting bail provisions.
Attorney General Dave Yost praised the passage of House Joint Resolution 2 and Senate Joint Resolution 5 as issues that came in response to an Ohio Supreme Court decision upholding an appeals court ruling that public safety cannot be considered when determining bail.
Read the full story
In the Aesop’s fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” a shepherd boy repeatedly cries “wolf” to trick villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking the sheep. After a great deal of false alarms, the boy’s cries lose significance to the townsfolk. One day when a wolf really does appear and the boy cries out for help, the villagers ignore him. The boy had sounded a false alarm so many times, his true cries for help had no relevance.
Read the full story
Politicians, including some Republicans, are calling for gun control after a recent spate of mass shootings, particularly last week’s involving a gunman who shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas. Gov. Doug Ducey pushed for “red flag” gun control laws previously, including in 2019 after two mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, and indicated this week he may renew that effort. The Arizona Citizens’ Defense League (AZCDL) immediately sent out 53,000 email alerts.
“Politicians like Ducey are dancing in the blood of victims as opposed to saving people’s lives,” AZCDL Communications Director Charles Heller told The Arizona Sun Times. “We need to stop the psychopaths who are doing this, by taking action like implementing FASTER, which trains teachers and staff at schools to arm themselves after proper training. Ducey’s statement is a profile in cowardice, he’s acting like politicians do when they are afraid of not getting votes.”
Read the full story
Most Arizona voters support at least some level of abortion restrictions, a new poll found.
Residents of the state have mixed opinions about abortion, an Arizona Public Opinion Pulse poll conducted by OH Predictive Insights shows.
Read the full story
Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey has exited the social media company’s board of directors.
The planned departure comes as Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk continues his attempt to purchase the company. The company initially announced last November that Dorsey would leave the board when his term expired at the company’s 2022 shareholder meeting, which took place Wednesday.
Read the full story
Georgia is working to create Behavioral Threat Assessment Teams throughout the state as a part of a broader school safety effort.
Eight regional Homeland Security Coordinators, all sworn law enforcement officers, will lead the teams and respond to threats or concerning behavior that may be considered a pathway to violence. The BTATs will provide help and guidance to local schools and communities to mitigate potential threats.
Read the full story
Within days of the special legislative session starting this week, both chambers passed bills to reform property insurance and to increase condominium safety.
Lawmakers passed two bills, Senate Bill 2D, Property Insurance, and Senate Bill 4D, Building Safety. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed them both Thursday.
Read the full story
Gigi Sohn has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), but not a single Republican in the Senate has said they will vote to approve her confirmation. If every Senate Democrat votes to confirm her, plus Vice President Kamala Harris as a tie-breaking vote, Sohn will be confirmed, but insiders say two pivotal Democratic senators have indicated they will vote no, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly.
In an op-ed for The Register-Herald, former West Virginia legislator Mike Oliverio said Sohn has “radical left-wing viewpoints.” He cited her “record calling Fox News state-sponsored propaganda and questioning whether Sinclair Broadcasting should have their broadcast licenses revoked.”
Read the full story
The San Diego City Council passed a resolution Tuesday declaring itself a “safe city” for abortion after a leaked draft opinion indicated the Supreme Court may be overturning Roe v. Wade.
The resolution passed 8-0 in the San Diego City Council, with members arguing the city has a responsibility to show it is a safe place for reproductive freedom, according to a press release. The declaration is not law and abortions will likely remain legal in California in the event Roe v. Wade is overturned, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Read the full story
The U.S. birthrate in 2021 increased for the first time since 2014, with COVID-19 pandemic restrictions potentially causing the jump.
The U.S. birthrate saw a 1% increase over the course of 2021 with 3.66 million babies being born throughout the year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. All age groups of women over 25 contributed to the jump in birthrates, with some experts suggesting that a lengthening COVID-19 pandemic might have contributed to the bump, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Read the full story
U.S. natural gas prices have skyrocketed nearly 150% this year while inventory levels have shrunk, signaling more consumer pain ahead of the summer season.
The Henry Hub natural gas spot price, an indicator of nationwide prices, stormed past $9.30 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) Thursday, up from its early January price of $3.74 per MMBtu and the highest level since 2008, according to government data. U.S. natural gas inventories have been drained in recent months, declining 17.6% year-over-year and down 15.3% relative to their 2017-2021 average, additional data released Thursday showed.
Read the full story
A month before America’s top infectious disease bureaucrat conceded that mRNA vaccines offer only short-lived protection against COVID-19, Anthony Fauci’s researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) offered a possible explanation why.
Read the full story
An official with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims that the reason the agency didn’t find a shocking whistleblower’s report on the baby formula shortage because the report was lost in the mailroom for at least four months.
The New York Post reports that the 34-page document had been sent to the FDA back in October, claiming that an Abbott Nutrition plant in Sturgis, Michigan was experiencing a shortage in product primarily due to increasingly unsanitary conditions. The FDA’s Frank Yiannas, Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response, admits he didn’t actually see the report until February.
Read the full story